


Drifting

by haku23



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Background Slash, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 10:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3131177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haku23/pseuds/haku23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hal is an engineer at the Alaska Shatterdome when a Kaiju attack leaves the base defenceless. Or Snake and Otacon drift together for the first time and surprisingly no one dies. Mentions of Otacon's abuse as a child. Past Frank/Snake mentioned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drifting

**Author's Note:**

> I've gotten back into MGS for whatever reason so I wrote this quickly. I mean, MGS already has giant robots and Alaska-it's a perfect fit for a Pacific Rim AU, right? :'D

“We need to go,” the man says, back straight and face set in a grim expression. Hal recognizes him-codename: Snake-from around the Alaska Shatterdome. Codename: Snake who lost his partner the last run and bears the scars of it all on his face and psyche-he hasn’t drifted since. Codename: Snake who drifts better with a stranger than his own twin brother.

 

“I can’t. They-people need me here,” his fingers shake as he continues the lockdown protocol for the ‘Dome. It won’t do any good, the Kaiju will tear the bay apart, but he has to try-he and this place stand between the city and the Kaiju. Alarms blare loudly but the launch bay lies empty, the last of the teams sent out and crushed like cans under the Kaiju’s claws. All except for one Jaeger.

 

“I need you to drift with me.”

 

His blood freezes, slows to a sluggish crawl in his veins and his stomach drops out, “wh-what? I-Snake, I’ve never piloted before that’s-it’s,” he pushes his glasses up on his nose, “suicide. For both of us.”

 

“Then get Fox ready for me.”

 

“You can’t pilot by yourself! The neural load is too much for one person!” his voice comes out shrill and he wishes for the composure of the pilot in front of him. _He_ doesn’t balk at the idea of dying from a massive brain hemorrhage but that really doesn’t scare Hal the most.

 

 _“I love you, Hal.”_ He hears it in his brain, feels it like a spider crawling over his skin and Snake will see it all, he’ll see everything.

 

“Then either get in the cockpit with me or hurry up!” Snake snarls, the composure slipping away with each second that drags on. A hero ready to give his life for the chance to save a city of people. Just like an anime.

 

“I. Okay.”

 

He flips switches, reroutes power and systems to the Jaeger standing quietly just out of sight. He feels it though, he always feels it when a Jaeger comes on line like a buzz in the back of his head because he has knelt knee deep in muscle strands and titanium parts before. These Mark of Jaegers represent his children, somewhat, and yet never has he stepped inside the cockpit of one.

 

They run, Snake at a full sprint with Hal lagging behind with a laptop in hand, to Solid Foxhound’s loading bay and Hal pulls on an undersuit that hangs in the arms and shoulders; made for a man Snake’s size. Made for codename: Grey Fox, birthname: Frank Jaeger, now Designation: Null. His fingers fumble with the equipment, more used to keystrokes than acting as his own pit crew so Snake pulls and pushes and prods until everything stays in place. He hands him a helmet-gunmetal grey with an orange-red stripe on either side. The suit itself is a medley of navy blue and the same red-orange colour with the ranger symbol embossed on the shoulders. Moving takes more effort now but they still go quickly.

 

Setting up the preliminary functions goes easily-a brush of fingers across the keyboard and the clunk of machinery locking them into place. No one has ever done this without a support before but Snake stands resolute and Hal knows the process well enough to do it even without the control room.

 

“I’ve never drifted before. With anyone.”

 

Snake looks at him, “don’t chase the RABIT.”

 

“I know _that_. I just…”

 

“I saw Frank die,” Snake says and Hal nods, sighs because of course there are things that Snake doesn’t want _him_ to see either. But they need to put it aside for now. The alarms get louder and even without someone warning him he knows this is it; their last chance to go.

 

He enters the command, “commencing Neural Handshake.”

 

_Hal alone in his room, distantly a child cries-Emma-he hears his father tell him that he’ll be a big brother now._

**_“Disappointment” “Too soft”. Snake,_ David _, alone. Brother turning his back. A man burning, a dog howling._ **

****

_Hal’s university. His step-mother his step-mother his **step-mother step-mother**_Don’t chase the RABIT.

 

**_Frank screaming screaming. Blood. Burning, wrenching, pain. Bottles, Hal,_ ** _Emma Emma Emma screaming. **Don’t chase the RABIT.**_

****

They shift backwards together, his heart pounding at first then settling into time with Snake’s, David’s, easy tempo. He laughs, somehow this it’s funny, funny how similar and different they are and Snake-David-no, Snake exists in his head too now.

 

“N-Neural Handshake steady.”

 

“Initiating launch procedure,” Snake says, more a habit he realizes, than a necessity. Years of training, like using Edit> copy instead of CTRL-C.

 

Piloting a Jaeger exceeds all expectations. Harder, more grueling than he thought it would be and yet mentally easier and secure. He doesn’t know if that comes from his choice in partner-Snake ran half a dozen missions with Frank before he died-or if knowing how the Jaeger works makes it simpler to understand.

 

The Kaiju sees them coming and ignores them. Its goal is the Shatterdome and then the city- _possible intelligence?-_ but they slam a fist into its head and that? That makes it angry. The roar, a mixture of a jungle cat and the sound of screeching tires, chills his bones but Snake keeps him centered, stable as sweat drips down his back and into his eyes.

 

“We can’t-“

 

“I know.”

 

They hit the button to deploy the High Frequency Blade together and they think of Frank ** _. Frank who raised his adopted sister alone. Frank who Snake met in the academy and forged a bond based on good old-fashioned violence. Frank who died to save him. Guilt. His fault._**

 

“Snake! Snaaaaaake!” he calls outloud. Following a memory. He’ll knock himself out of alignment and then Hal- _Emma Emma Step-mother_ Emma. And then they’ll be sitting ducks. **_Frank. Holly. Dead brother._**

 

Warning bells and then silence but for the sound of the Kaiju outside and their harsh, dissonant breaths. They can’t do this they can’t, they exist in different planes- _Hal_ can’t do this, he can’t pull Snake out of this of course he can’t. He feels tears welling in his eyes at imagining the people who won’t wake up, who they could have saved. He needs to be strong he needs to focus not on the images in front of him- _dead father. Alone all alone-_ but pulling them together. Focus on their shared goal, what makes them the same. Compare the two lines of code and combine them into one. The Kaiju knocks them back and sends them reeling but then.

 

“Neural Handshake at 99%.”

 

They breathe a sigh of relief, together again. Hal’s teeth chatter-shock, probably but they don’t have the time to go into shock-and they pull back, the Kaiju’s teeth scraping along the chest plate of Foxhound. He doesn’t expect to feel it like his own pain but it sears his chest like a brand and he screams out loud. Of course, of course he feels it, they and the Jaeger connect too, and he feels her pain too. Snake grunts and they fall into a familiar stance. Ready to fight, to tear the Kaiju limb from limb. Hal doesn’t know which of them the emotion belongs to- _Emma bleeding, Emma dying as he cradles her_ ­-but it feels like his own too.

 

The High Frequency Blade slides through the soft underbelly of the Kaiju, through its guts and up to its neck. It cuts like a well-cooked turkey, like _E.E._ It gives a shriek, its tail whipping but making its wound worse as it writhes and tries to _shove her guts back in help her help her can’t do anything help her._

 

“Warning.”

 

The Conn-Pod’s voice morphs into Emma’s, into E.E’s “Hal, I miss you, Hal”. He screams, it has to be him screaming-focus focus don’t chase the RABIT _focus_ pull yourself out find Snake again _-_ and then it stops, the feedback loop stops and he can’t breathe but Snake is there.

 

“It’s ok,” he says and Hal believes him.

 

“I saw-I-“

 

“I know.”

 

“Have to,” he manages to take a deep breath though his voice and the rest of him shakes, “let the others know threat is neutralized.”

 

Snake nods and they open a channel to anyone in the area to send an EVAC and cleanup crew. Inside the Jaeger feels like a safe haven, he still feels a connection even though she has been shut down. A Drift Hangover they call it-he still feels Snake too like a phantom limb.

 

“I’m sorry I..I wasn’t expecting-“

 

“We beat it. It’s all that matters.”

 

He nods. Snake and Fox…gaps still exist in their shared memories but the important parts have been filled in. Of course them being together doesn’t surprise him, not with the nature of piloting a Jaeger, but Snake well, Snake doesn’t look the type. It’s messed up of him to think that.

 

The silence almost feels amicable though he still shakes and Snake stares, pensive all of a sudden, out across the ocean. “Why’d you choose me?”

 

“You were there.”

 

“Why were you?”

 

Snake shrugs like he knows Hal seeks to fill in the blank spaces in his head and doesn’t answer. Duty? A death wish, maybe, one pilot surviving while the other dies makes up about 0.5% of all of the ends to an unsuccessful bought with a Kaiju and well. Snake and Fox. He feels the familiar, heavy grief like it belongs to him and wonders if Snake feels it for Emma too.

 

“She was smart,” Snake says and startles him out of his own thoughts.

 

“Sorry.”

 

It feels rude somehow to impose his thoughts on Snake when he has heartache of his own-a dead sister, a dead father, a…step-mother who loved him too much hardly seems worthy of Snake’s time. But then Snake has a dead brother, a dead father, a family who never loved him but for his achievements.

 

Snake doesn’t say anything, either not able to find the right words or something else. He doesn’t quite pace because as much space as the Conn-Pod has it doesn’t have quite that much room and Snake doesn’t want to seem unhinged he thinks. Unhinged repeats in his mind like a mantra-he must have heard it a lot after Frank-Fox.

 

Their extraction comes soon after and Mei Ling squeezes them too tightly, having flown in from the Hawaii, and Campbell claps them on the shoulders. Snake straightens his back-ingrained now-and Hal feels himself follow suit without even thinking about it.

 

He expects Snake to want to be as far away from him and his disgusting memories but after the fanfare, the speech by Campbell, he follows him to his room.

 

“Shit,” he says, stops outside the door and shakes his head.

 

Hal laughs, the blanket still wrapped around his now armourless shoulders, “you could come in if you want.”

 

Snake nods and steps inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
